Shattered Innocence

Colby Lopez looked down at the little slip of paper that had his best friend's address written on it, and then up at the ratty front door he was standing in front of. He was pretty sure he had the right place, but then again it was hard to tell because the numbers nailed to the wall next to the door were falling off. He found it hard to believe that his best bud lived in a place like this though. The neighborhood was scary, with shady characters hanging out on the street corners, and the buildings were all in various stages of falling apart. Figuring that it couldn't hurt to check, he reached out and knocked on the door.

There was a loud crash from inside, startling him and causing him to jump back a few feet. He was about to turn around and leave when the door opened a crack, and Jonathan Good slipped out, quickly shutting the door behind him. He was a little out of breath, and his brown hair looked like it needed a good trim. He brushed it out of his blue eyes and blinked at Colby, then seized him by the wrist and took off running, dragging the other ten-year-old along with him.

They ran all the way to the rusty barbed wire fence that ran along the edge of the thick forest a ways behind Jon's apartment, both of them panting by the time they got there. They walked along the fence until they reached the section that had been trampled down by animals, and Jon hopped over first, quickly followed by Colby. The two boys wandered further into the woods, completely unafraid. Jon had been bringing him here for quite some time, but he had never told him that he lived in the apartment across the field. Colby stopped walking abruptly as a realization struck him.

Jon heard Colby's footsteps stop, and he turned to look at his best friend, a curious look on his face. "What's wrong with you?"

"Jon," Colby said, looking as innocent as could be. "If you live in that building, then does that mean that crazy lady who lives there is your-"

"Tag! You're it!" Jon slapped Colby's arm hard enough to leave a mark and raced off into the foliage, quickly disappearing among the trees.

"Hey! No fair, I wasn't ready!" Colby yelled after him, and then he took off in pursuit.

The two raced around for hours, laughing and playing various games. Time always seemed to fly whenever they were together, and pretty soon the sun was starting to set. Even so, they decided to get one last game of hide and seek in. Colby won the game of rock, paper, scissors, and he raced off to hide as Jon began a slow count to twenty.

Finding a snug place behind a fallen tree trunk, Colby sprawled on his stomach and waited. He knew that Jon would skip to twenty because that was just the way he was, and sure enough Jon leaped from five to twenty and set out in search of the other boy. Colby covered his mouth to stop from laughing as Jon bent over to check behind a rock only a few feet away from where he hid. He was confident in the fact that Jon wouldn't be able to find him.

A bright color that seemed out of place in the soothing greens and browns of the forest caught Colby's eye, and he noticed a small trickle of ruby red blood sliding down the back of Jon's neck. His eyes went wide, and he gasped, "Jon!"

Jon straightened up and spun around, looking irritated. "Colby, you're not supposed to talk, stupid!"

Colby scrambled to his feet. "You're bleeding!"

Jon blinked and touched the back of his neck, and when he drew his fingers away they were smeared with crimson. He suddenly seemed to grow very sullen, and he wiped his fingers off on a nearby fern. "So? It's no big deal."

"How did you get hurt?" Colby asked, concerned. He hadn't seen Jon get scratched on anything, but who knew in the woods?

Jon was really quiet for a few seconds, and then he said, "Mama gets angry when she drinks too much. She woke up from her nap when you knocked, and when she saw me running to answer the door she threw her bottle at me."

Colby stared at him in horror. He had never heard of such a thing. His own mother would never throw anything at him, even if she got really mad at him. "Why does your Mama drink so much?" he asked.

Jon gave a little shrug and looked up at the sky that peeked through the branches overhead. "I dunno. Sometimes she says it's my fault 'cause I look like my daddy. She says she hates him. Sometimes she says she hates me too."

"But how could anybody hate you?" Colby asked. He knew that he was asking a lot of questions, but he always did.

"I dunno," Jon said again, kicking at a twig with the tip of his hole-filled tennis shoe. "I don't care. I hate my mama too. I wish I had a brother or a sister. At least then she wouldn't have to hit me as much."

Colby reached out to touch Jon's shoulder. "I'll be your brother, Jon," he offered kindly. He didn't want his best friend to be alone.

Jon shook his head furiously from side-to-side and shrugged Colby's hand off. "No, I don't want you to be my brother," he said forcefully. "I don't want her to hit you too."

"I'll get hit, if it means you don't," Colby told him. "Isn't that what best friends do for each other? We are best friends, aren't we?"

Jon looked at him almost a little shyly, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "No," he said. "We're brothers."

Colby gave him a bright smile, and he moved toward Jon, his arms out like he wanted a hug.

Jon shoved him away, scowling. "Knock it off, stupid. Just 'cause we're brothers now doesn't mean you get to hug me."

Colby continued to smile anyway. He had always wanted a brother.

Dean Ambrose opened his eyes as the memory faded, suddenly feeling very cold inside. He thought he had locked Jonathan Good in a box and thrown away the key years ago, but now in the midst of carnage, he had escaped his confines and attempted to break free. The cool cement of the cinderblocks below his cheek helped to steady him, to anchor him to the present. He could feel Kane's huge hand on the back of his neck, holding his head in place, his fingers gripping the exact spot where the blood had flowed. He was sure that more blood would flow today, but not at the hands of his darling mother this time.

Oh, how quickly the roles had been reversed. The person who had once offered to take a beating for him now stood above him, waiting to deliver one of his own. This was what he got for letting someone in, for believing that best friends actually existed.

Looking down at Dean's head resting on those cinderblocks from where he stood atop the announce table, Seth Rollins was suddenly reminded of a day when a little naive boy named Colby Lopez played hide-and-seek with another boy who he considered to be his best friend. How innocent he had been, how willing to sacrifice his own well-being for the health of his friend.

He wasn't so naive anymore. Friendship got you nothing but no appreciation. He had always been taken for granted, even when he was younger and had to put up with being called "stupid". Back then he had thought of it as an affectionate term, but no longer. Colby Lopez was dead. He had died a long time ago, back in that forest behind that shitty apartment building, still waiting for someone to find him.

Dean looked up at him from the corner of his eye, and suddenly in his mind's eye Seth saw the shy face of a little boy, already scarred and broken after only ten short years of being alive, with blood trickling down the back of his neck from a cut on his head.

We are best friends, aren't we?

Springing off of the table, Seth brought his foot down hard.